ELMONT, N.Y. – The waiting wasn’t the hardest part of Belmont Stakes Day for trainer Todd Pletcher.

After going winless with seven horses in five stakes on Saturday’s card, Pletcher was the last trainer standing in the winner’s circle, getting his picture taken with Marconi following the Grade 2, $400,000 Brooklyn Invitational.

“I’m glad they had a 13th race yesterday,” Pletcher said Sunday morning.

ELMONT, N.Y. – If any horse benefits from the extension of the Saratoga meet to eight weeks it’s Voodoo Song, who is 5 for 6 at the Spa including a victory in the Grade 1 Fourstardave Handicap last summer at Saratoga.

Voodoo Song, who has not run since last October, is training toward a return to racing, which will coincide with the Saratoga meet, which begins July 11.

On Sunday, Voodoo Song worked a half-mile in 48.21 seconds over the Belmont turf course. It was his second work since returning to trainer Linda Rice’s barn last month.

ELMONT, N.Y. – The multiple stakes winner Hawkish, who had been under consideration for Sunday’s Grade 3 Poker Stakes at Belmont Park, will miss the bulk of the summer as he recovers from throat surgery, according to trainer Jimmy Toner.

Toner said Hawkish underwent surgery shortly after his victory in the Cliff Hanger Stakes at Monmouth in early May. Toner said the surgery was performed by Dr. Eric Parente at the New Bolton Center in Pennsylvania.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Vickie Foley called on a higher power Saturday when it appeared possible that Hog Creek Hustle would be disqualified from victory in the Grade 1 Woody Stephens at Belmont Park.

Foley is the daughter of the late Dravo Foley, a popular local trainer whose footsteps she closely followed in a career she started in 1981.

“I was standing out on the racetrack and I said, ‘Please Dad, don’t let them take this horse down,’ ” she recalled. When the Belmont stewards kept the number up, “I got a lot of help,” she surmised.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Steve Asmussen is sorry to see the 2019 Triple Crown go. Not that his stable was a factor in any of the trio of classic races, but the surrounding events proved real bonanzas for the Hall of Fame trainer.

“Without winning a classic, we did have some good weekends,” a smiling Asmussen said early Monday when back at his Churchill Downs barn from New York.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Nearly six months in, the race for the Eclipse Award as champion 3-year-old male is about as wide open as it was on New Year’s Day, setting the stage for a compelling second half of the season, with races like the Travers and Pennsylvania Derby looming large.

For the third time in the last four years, all three Triple Crown races were won by a different horse. In both 2016 and 2017, the Travers proved pivotal, as the winner both those years went on to claim the title.

Mr Money Bags notched the third stakes win of his young career earlier this month and is now being pointed for the Grade 3, $300,000 Super Derby at his Louisiana Downs base, said trainer Mike Neatherlin.

It was a record-setting Triple Crown, even if two of the records came with asterisks.

Handle records were set for every race in the Triple Crown this year, as well as their undercards, although the records for Saturday’s Belmont Stakes and its undercard were the ones that drew the asterisks. Those records were set for a Belmont in which a Triple Crown was not on the line. Since handle and attendance totals for a Triple Crown try are supercharged and the race struggles to command attention from a mass audience when no Triple Crown is possible, it’s a legitimate record.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Following three productive turf starts this winter at Gulfstream Park by Melmich, trainer Kevin Attard said he would likely focus on turf this season for the horse, beginning with the Grade 3, $125,000 Singspiel Stakes over 1 1/2 miles at Woodbine on June 22.

Attard said he would also nominate Melmich to the Grade 3, $125,000 Dominion Day Stakes over 1 1/4 miles on Tapeta on June 30 as a backup option.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Historically, horses that run well in the Woodbine Oaks and Plate Trial Stakes have gone on to have success in the Queen’s Plate. Following Saturday’s running of the Oaks and the Plate Trial, connections of the respective winners, Desert Ride in the Oaks and Pay for Peace in the Plate Trial, said the Queen’s Plate would be under consideration.